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Azati Prime
In the Temporal Cold War '' |image= |series= |production=40358-070/318 |producer(s)= |story=Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Manny Coto |script= Manny Coto |director= Allan Kroeker |imdbref=tt0572177 |guests=Matt Winston as Temporal Agent Daniels, Randy Oglesby as Degra, Scott MacDonald as Commander Dolim, Tucker Smallwood as Xindi-Primate Councilor, Rick Worthy as Jannar and Christopher Goodman as Thalen |previous_production=Hatchery |next_production=Damage |episode=ENT S03E18 |airdate=3 March 2004 |previous_release=Hatchery |next_release=Damage |story_date(s)= January 2154/2550s |previous_story=Hatchery |next_story=Damage }} =Summary= Despite their time-wasting detours of recent days (Harbinger and Hatchery) Enterprise reaches Azati Prime before the Xindi finish construction of their superweapon. Captain Archer sends Commander Tucker and Ensign Mayweather on board a Xindi shuttle they had previously captured to investigate the planet. Working their way past security, they approach the weapon, which is being built underwater. Meanwhile, Archer orders Enterprise to destroy a Xindi detection facility on the planet's moon to prevent it from signalling the ship's presence. The shuttle returns with scans of the weapon, confirming it is just days from being finished, so Archer designates himself to pilot a suicide mission to destroy it. The crew try to talk him out of it but he is resolute. Archer then suddenly finds himself 400 years in the future on board the USS Enterprise-J, alongside Temporal Agent Daniels. They are at the battle where the Sphere Builders (the alien species first seen in episode "Harbinger") are defeated, and Daniels gives Archer an initiation medal from a Xindi who had joined Starfleet as temporal evidence. Back on his Enterprise, Archer rejects the notion of a Human-Xindi détente, and leaves on the shuttle. He arrives at the superweapon construction site but finds it gone, and is rapidly captured by the Xindi Commander Dolim. The Reptilians begin to interrogate Archer, who then asks to speak to Degra, the Primate scientist from episode Stratagem. Using Daniels' medal, Archer tries to convince Degra that the Reptilians cannot be trusted, but Dolim arrives with armed colleagues and takes the Primates away. Meanwhile, Sub-Commander T'Pol, now in command of Enterprise, displays signs of an emotional breakdown. She also decides to go on a mission, to negotiate a peace, and reacts angrily when Tucker tries to stop her. An attack from four Xindi ships follows, and Enterprise is left severely damaged. =Errors and Explanations= # Aside from the usual logical problems of time travel I wonder when and how the Sphere Builders pursue which goal and why. They are transdimensional, they want to rebuild our space to suit their needs, they can scan the timeline, that much we know. But it all doesn't seem to make much sense. In Anomaly the spheres were said to be at least 1000 years old, so are they transforming space for so long a time? If this were true, why don't we ever hear of an ever expanding Expanse in TOS or TNG? They had most likely been defeated, and become mythical, by the time of TOS. # If it's all a parallel timeline and the spheres are not supposed to exist in the Trek universe we used to know, why would the Sphere Builders involve the Xindi who are quite obviously utterly unreliable allies? The sphere builders can’t survive in our realm for long, and need a species they can manipulate to do the work – and to take the blame if/when the plan fails! # If they could go back in time and build the spheres, couldn't they wipe out Earth some time further in the past while they were at it? Earth may not have been considered enough of a threat to them until after the Broken Bow incident. Nit Central # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 7:41 pm: Was it just me, or was Daniels maybe a little too glib with his information this time around? He went from "Not-talking-about-the-Federation-at-all to "Federation History 101," and it seemed a little uncharacteristic of him. Either he or his superiors decided to change their approach, by giving Archer more information, in order to make him more willing to co-operate. # Okay, the timeline is acting screwy again. In Shockwave, Daniels pulled Archer forward in time, to the tune of seriously screwing up the timeline, as Archer somehow was then never able to kick-start the Federation or some such, and all of history was damaged. Here, Daniels pulls Archer forward in time... and everything's fine. They planned it properly this time, by taking extra precautions! # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 10:18 pm: Archer told Daniels that they had come to the conclusion that the Sphere Makers were overhauling the galaxy as part of a takeover attempt. When did they come up with that? Was Archer just posturing? Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 11:12 am: In Harbinger, Archer and T'Pol discussed that perhaps there was some truth in the Triannon myths about the Makers learned in Chosen Realm. According to the myth, the Spheres were reshaping the Expanse, and Archer speculated that the alien might be akin to a coal mine canary... a test subject to check if they can survive in our universe. This, coupled with the alien's dying words about his people prevailing probably led him to this conclusion. # Keith Alan Morgan on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 12:08 am: So what's the point of having a communications facility be out of contact for any length of time? Even if they can't broadcast through the moon there could have been a satellite in orbit or a series of lunar surface relay stations on the moon so it could be in continual contact. Jesse on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 6:55 am: You're absolutely right. Unfortunately, I can't fault the creators because this is the first time in half of forever that I feel like the creators have actually come up with a non-technobabble explanation for a technological limitation. I know that Clarke's Law (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") would naturally apply when one looks 2 or 3 centuries into the future, but it seems to me (and others) like technology serves as a deus ex machina for the writers, behaving this way one week and that way another based on the specific needs of that episode, with random B.S. explanations tossed in to try and "explain" the differences. I found it very refreshing that a simple, reasonable explanation like the monitoring station being unable to communicate due to lunar rotation was used instead of "somekinda" distortion field or something else. Unfortunately, their limitation could have easily been overcome using primitive 20th century technology, as Keith demonstrated. # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 1:57 am: Why doesn’t anyone in or around the underwater weapon facility notice the unauthorized Insectoid shuttle in Act 1, but notice it later during Archer’s mission in Act 3? Darth Sarcasm on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 11:12 am: Maybe they wondered what an Insectoid shuttle was doing there after the weapon had been moved. Granted, you'd expect stricter security while the weapon was there. Also, by this point, the Xindi were aware of the destruction of the communications outpost, which undoubtedly put them on high alert. ''SeniramUK 12:30, November 21, 2018 (UTC)''They probably double checked the movement and location records for all their shuttles between the two events. # When looking over the schematics of the weapon in the Command Center following Trip and Travis’ scene near the end of Act 1, Reed points out a part of the weapon he calls its “explosive matrix.” But the test version of the weapon used in The Expanse didn’t use an explosion. It used an energy beam. Jesse on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 7:03 am: True, but perhaps the theory of operation is similar to that of an X-ray laser. In the heyday of the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars", as Pres. Reagan called it), there was a plan for an X-ray laser that could take out ICBMs in transit. Basically, a nuclear bomb aboard a satellite would be detonated, and just before the detonation obliterated the satellite, the release of gamma rays and X-rays would be used to "pump" a lasing medium that would emit a beam of X-ray radiation. Essentially, the bomb's energy was what powered the laser. Maybe the Xindi weapon uses a similar concept. # When Reed suggests using a couple of photonic torpedoes to destroy the Xindi weapon at the end of Act 1, Archer says it’ll be a one-way trip. Why is this? Even if the shuttle isn’t equipped with launchers compatible with Enterprise’s torpedoes, why can’t they rig the shuttle to carry the torpedoes on its underside, and release them when they want to? That would incur the risk of the torpedoes being detonated by entry into either the planet’s atmosphere or it’s ocean – and that's assuming the Xindi don’t fire on it when they spot the torpedoes! # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 2:19 am: The issue of whether the Enterprise’s mission was to avert the destruction of Earth by destroying the Xindi Weapon or by opening a dialogue with them (or some combination of both) has been somewhat unclear, and Archer has shown some vagueness on the matter, particularly in episodes like The Shipment, but for the past several episodes, Archer’s immediate concern seems to have been to destroy the Weapon. Because of this ambiguity, I’ve been reluctant to point this out, but I’m doing so here because Daniels actually mentions it to Archer in the opening scene of Act 2: He mentions that destroying the Xindi weapon they will only build another. Well, duuuhhhh! Why didn’t Archer consider this before? At most it would only delay the Xindi destruction of Earth, not stop it. Or did Archer think that destroying a new technology would also destroy all records of its schematics, as apparently happened with the Bird of Prey that could fire when cloaked in ST VI? Taking a diplomatic approach would be risky, but it would have a long-term goal instead of the short-term goal of destroying the Weapon. On the other hand, the destruction of the weapon could be more likely to force the Xindi to accept a diplomatic solution. # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 3:19 am: If Daniels has all this information about the Sphere-builders and their involvement in events all the way up to the 26th century, why couldn’t he tell Archer the name of their species? Instead, he repeatedly refers to them simply as the "Sphere-builders." The species name could be difficult/impossible for other species to pronounce! # Anonymous on Thursday, March 04, 2004 - 6:53 am: I wonder if the captain of Enterprise J was aware of the presence of Daniels on board. For all we know, the Ent-J’s captain could be the person in charge of Daniels and his mission! Category:EpisodesCategory:Enterprise